


Graduation

by heydoeydoey



Series: Everything 'verse [27]
Category: Glee
Genre: Burt's POV, Family, Graduation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-14
Updated: 2012-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22791787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heydoeydoey/pseuds/heydoeydoey
Summary: There are things Burt wants to tell them, but words have never been his strong suit.
Relationships: Kurt Hummel/Noah Puckerman
Series: Everything 'verse [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638469
Kudos: 17





	Graduation

Burt remembers too easily the days Kurt came home with dirt on his clothes and tear stains on his face. In the early years, Liz had been there to wrap him up in a tight hug and sit him down with a mug of warm milk. Kurt would tell her about his day, and by the time Burt got home from work, Liz would have soothed the hurt. When she died, Burt really didn’t think he was going to survive. Not only had his world shattered apart, but he had an eight-year-old boy he barely understood, let alone knew how to comfort in the wake of losing his mother. 

Burt has spent a long time being completely in awe of his son. He’s not sure what he did right to end up with a boy as strong and determined and brave as Kurt is. There aren’t many fathers who can say their children would go to school, day after day _knowing_ it was going to be hell and still not backing down. They fumbled through the first few years after Liz died, and Burt remembers lots of slammed doors and frustrated tears. 

He knows Kurt kept most of the incidents at school to himself. By the time he was eleven, he knew how to hide his hurt. It only got worse as he got older and the insults became sharper and crueller. Burt wonders if he should have pushed harder, demanded to know everything, but thinks it would have just ended up hurting them both more. It certainly doesn’t look it, but Kurt is the stronger of the two of them and there are times Burt can’t help hating the world that forced his little boy to grow up much too quickly. Sometimes when he looks at Kurt, he still sees that broken-hearted eight-year-old, and it makes standing on the McKinley football field taking graduation pictures that much more surreal.

Kurt had spent the whole morning complaining about his cap and gown—the cap would mash his hair down, the polyester was going to give him a rash, could he _please_ take the gown off for pictures. They’d all gone in one ear and out the other, which had been Burt’s preferred coping mechanism for fashion conversations over the past ten years, but it dawned on him this morning that Kurt will be leaving too soon, and come August he isn’t going to hear any of Kurt’s opinions about stirrup pants or flannel or coveralls.

Despite his complaints, Kurt is still in his graduation gown (although he never bothered trying to retrieve his cap after tossing it in the air), standing next to Finn and smiling widely for photos. Puckerman is hovering just a few feet away with his own family, grinning at his mother while she takes a picture of him with his sister. 

Kurt takes the photo of Finn and Carole before they switch and Burt wraps his arm tightly around Kurt’s shoulders and forces himself to grin at the camera even though there’s a tightness in his throat that makes him feel more like crying. Kurt is taller than him now, and Burt can’t help wondering how it happened without him noticing.

When it comes time to take a photo of the four of them, Kurt hauls his boyfriend over. 

“One, two, three, Hudmel,” Puck grins. The resulting picture has Kurt looking a little exasperated, Finn grinning widely, Carole laughing in surprise and Burt rolling his eyes. They take a second where everyone is smiling, but Burt ends up framing the first. They look more like them. 

It’s not long after that that the boys leave for some party or another and he and Carole drive home to an empty house. He thinks they should get used to it, although he figures they’re going to be seeing a lot of Finn. Burt suspects he won’t mind driving two hours for his mother’s cooking and free laundry.

But Kurt will only be home for holidays, probably for the rest of forever. The thought makes Burt’s heart twist in his chest, because he’s not sure what a day-to-day life without Kurt in it is going to be like. They’re an unlikely pair, but they make it work.

He’s still awake when the boys get home. Carole falls asleep early since she has a five AM shift tomorrow, and Burt can’t sleep if the kids are out anyway. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust them; he just sleeps better knowing where they are. He lies awake, listening to them moving around the kitchen, their voices a low murmur, and he slides out of bed quietly so as not to wake his wife. 

When he gets downstairs, there’s a box of Kraft mac and cheese open on the counter and a pot of water on the stove to boil. Finn is digging through the fridge and from the way Kurt is half-laughing, half-shaking his head, Burt guesses they’re having the ketchup debate again.

“Hey Dad,” Kurt says as soon as he spots Burt. “We didn’t wake you, did we?”

Burt shakes his head, “Nah. I was still up. You boys have fun tonight?”

“Yeah,” Finn says, swinging the fridge closed and setting the bottle of Heinz down next to the mac and cheese, making Kurt roll his eyes. “We’re starving though. By the time we got there, all of the food was gone. Tina’s family knows how to eat.”

“This from the guy who had three pieces of cake.”

“I was _so_ hungry. And you had two, so you’re almost as bad.”

Kurt pours the noodles into the now-boiling water and steps neatly around Finn to grab milk and butter from the fridge.

“You want some too, Burt?” Finn asks. “There’s enough.”

Burt thinks about saying goodnight and going back upstairs rather than interrupt their late-night mac and cheese tradition, but he remembers with a jolt that there aren’t going to be many more nights like this. Plus he _is_ hungry.

“Sounds good,” he smiles and comes to lean against the island. “Your mother made me eat a veggie burger tonight. I’m starving.”

Kurt huffs out a sigh. “Do you know how much salt is in this?”

“One bowl won’t kill me, kiddo,” Burt says. Kurt’s face falls a little and Burt regrets his choice of words, but the sentiment is true enough.

“Fine,” Kurt says with a stubborn lift of his chin that makes him look just like his mother, “but I’m not putting any butter in.”

Finn pouts, but they both know better than to try to fight Kurt on this. 

Five minutes later, they’re all sitting at the table while Burt and Finn mix ketchup into their mac and cheese and Kurt wrinkles his nose in disgust. There are things Burt wants to tell them—how proud he is, how much he’s going to miss both of them—but words have never been his strong suit. So he eats his mac and cheese and laughs along while the two of them tease each other easily like they’ve been brothers for a lot longer than a year and a half.

His boys are almost men now, and as much as Burt is going to worry about them, he knows they’re going to be okay.


End file.
